News of Our Past: Tower to make Chico State a cooler place

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The Majestic Theatre on Second Street, later the El Rey, is shown in 1910. Photos like this from the John Nopel and Randy Taylor collections can be seen at the Chico History Museum’s exhibit, “Chico Through Time.” The museum at 141 Salem St. is open Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Courtesy of Chico History Museum)

25 YEARS AGO

Tower to make Chico State a cooler place

A 80-foot-tall “thermos bottle” is being built on the edge of the Chico State University campus. The giant water tank will be used to store chilled water.

Chico State officials expect it to knock as much as $400,000 a year off the campus’ electric bill.

The tank is part of a $4.1 million project to make the campus’ central air-conditioning system more effective and cost-efficient and to hook up to buildings it doesn’t now serve. Constructing the 1.4 million-gallon water tank is scheduled to be complete by March 15.

The tank and tower are being built at the boiler chiller plant near the railroad tracks on the campus’ southwest corner. Work began nearly two months ago. It took 48 truckloads of concrete to pour the circular slab the tank sits on.

The greatest benefit expected is savings on electrical cost. Bill Peterson of Chico State’s Plant Operations estimated electricity for air conditioning costs about $135,000 monthly in hot weather. Once the water tank is built, the chillers will run at night, when power is cheapest, and cool water can be stored in the tank, then pumped to the campus the next day as needed.

— Chico Enterprise-Record, December 2, 1993

50 YEARS AGO

Search of Old Marble Yard

A Chico landmark until recently was the marble yard of Chico Granite and Marble Works at 165 E. First St.

Surrounded by an old-fashioned wrought iron fence, it had been there since 1879 when William Robbie, who would become one of Chico’s most beloved mayors, and a man named Bruce came from San Francisco to found the works.

Robbie came to the United States from Scotland. When Bruce died a few years after the establishment of the business, Robbie became full owner. In 1906, when his son, Warren, was grown up, Robbie took the son into a partnership. At his death in 1924, Warren Robbie continued the operation alone. When Warren Robbie’s died in 1945, his son-in-law, George Carr, assumed the administration.

In 1954, Ted Brownfield of Red Bluff and sons, James and Donald, bought the yard. Later Ted sold his share to his sons and returned to Red Bluff to operate his marble works.

The land always belonged to the Robbies. Last July Mrs. Warren Robbie, present owner, leased it to Union Oil Co. who desired to expand its station at the corner of First and Main Streets.

The marble works also originally occupied the site on which the oil station was built probably in the 1930s. It faced Main Street for more than 50 years before that.

With lease to the oil company, the marble works moved to 1423 Mangrove Ave.

— Chico Daily Enterprise, December 2, 1968

75 YEARS AGO

Board Considers Per Diem Deductions for Teachers

The method of computing per diem pay for the Chico school teachers came up for discussion Wednesday night by the Chico Board of Education, F.F. Martin, city superintendent of schools, indicating he was adverse to changing the method of using 173 teaching days, which ignores the extra time spent in institutes sessions, as the basis of his figuring, asked the board to postpone the matter until the December meeting to give him time to confer with Jay E. Partridge, county superintendent of schools.

As a wartime measure Butte County curtailed the extra days devoted to institute and added them on to a shorter school day, which is about 40 minutes longer than the regular minimum day.

— Chico Daily Enterprise, November 26, 1943

100 YEARS AGO

Aerial Mail Service For Chico; Co-operation Of Citizens Asked

Chico has been placed on a new map. This time it is on the map of the Aerial League of America, of which Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary is the president, and Augustus Post, secretary and treasurer. This new map is of the route of the transcontinental airway, and the placing of Chico is of such importance on the proposed route that this city will undoubtedly be a landing station for the serial mail service.

This was made known by a letter addressed to Mayor Robbie, of which the following is a part:

To the Mayor, Chico, Cal.-My Dear Sir: Now that 5000 h.p. air cruisers are under construction, and larger ones are being designed, we can look forward to the time when every city will become an aerial port to four air liners; and in the immediate future we may expect an extension of the aerial mail service throughout the country.” …